Before The Worst
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: Before they were vampires they had been a normal human family and Klaus had actually been a good big brother to his younger siblings. Shameless family fluff.


**I do not own the vampire diaries, I belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.**

Niklaus was only four when his brother Kol was born, but he still remembered the tiny baby with a thick shock of dark hair and those huge eyes that had stared up at him when he saw him for the first time in his mother's arms.

As Kol grew, Klaus always tried to teach his brother his first words, "Nik-laus," he emphasised, looking down at the smiling baby. "Niklaus, can you say it?" He asked hopefully.

"Niklaus, he's not a year old yet, he does not know how to talk." Elijah tried to explain to his blonde brother, who was still watching Kol as though he expected him to begin speaking at any second.

"You don't know that, Elijah." The boy pouted, glaring at his older brother.

The ten year old fought the urge to roll his eyes and assure his little brother that he _did _know that as he had already watched two brothers start walking and talking before Kol was even born.

To Klaus's bitter disappointment, Kol's first word was "mama" and, to make matters worse, Kol was able to say everybody else's name before his own.

"Don't sulk, Niklaus, I'm sure Kol will learn your name too." Esther reassured her son.

"I tried to get him to say my name for ages, nobody else did." He muttered irritably, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling.

Across the room, Mikael let out a snort at his son's dramatic nature, turning it into a cough when his wife shot him a reproving look.

That evening, Esther handed a wriggling Kol to Finn to hold as she prepared dinner. Finn pulled an expression of irritation and discomfort at having to hold the fidgeting child who seemed intent on escaping his arms.

"Where do you want to go?" He eventually asked his brother, not fully expecting any kind of coherent reply.

"I'll take him." Elijah offered, taking pity on Finn and holding his arms out for his baby brother. As soon as Kol was handed over to Elijah he began to fuss again and let out little whimpers of discontent.

"What is it, Kol?" He asked, rocking the boy from side to side to try and calm him down.

Niklaus, who had been sitting in the corner and pointedly ignoring his younger sibling for the great offence of not having learned his name yet, glanced up as the little boy gestured clumsily in his direction.

"N'k'l's!" He cried unintelligibly, causing confusion for his brothers.

"What's he doing?" Klaus wondered.

"He's just babbling," Finn decided.

"N…N'k", Kol squealed again and Elijah grinned as he realised what the child was trying to say.

"My arms are tired, you take a turn holding him, _Nik_." Elijah suggested, passing their brother over to Klaus before he had the chance to either object or ask why his older brother was calling him _Nik_.

"Nik!" Kol cried happily and wound his tiny fist in his brother's pale blonde hair and tugged.

"Ow!" The boy objected, until he realised what his little brother had said. He beamed delightedly and pulled the small boy closer and allowed him to mess with his hair as much as he wanted.

"I'm going to teach you lots of other words too," he promised his brother, "and then you can take my side in fights with Elijah and Finn."

"Nik." Kol repeated, making Klaus smile hugely again.

/

Niklaus was seven when Rebekah was born. She was tiny, with golden hair and enormous blue eyes which made Klaus happy as, before her, he had been the only member of the family with blonde hair and blue eyes but now she was here too.

"You and me are the good looking ones," he assured his baby sister as he cradled her against his chest. "The others are going to be very jealous of us."

He adored his sister, especially when the first proper word that came out of her mouth was "Nik," from that point onwards they were practically inseparable. Klaus would sit inside and play dolls with her when she was very little and when she was older he would take her for walks through the village with him and show her everything, he even risked incurring his father's scowls by allowing her to braid and play with his hair.

Rebekah always took a great interest in sword fighting, she would stop and tug insistently at Klaus's hand until he halted, and watch as Elijah and Finn practiced, until Mikael told him to take his sister somewhere else and not to encourage her. As soon as they were out of their father's earshot Nik would always promise, "I'll teach you to use a blade and to fight one day, no matter what father says."

The blonde girl would always, without fail, grin up at him with joy and swing their arms where they were joined as they walked along.

/

By the time Henrich was born Klaus was fourteen. He was no longer overly concerned about his name being his baby brother's first word, although he still made the attempt when he had nothing better to do.

Klaus often enjoyed carrying his youngest brother around with him on his walks through the village as the village girls loved Henrich and would coo over him for hours if they were able. This tactic usually worked until Mikael would stick his head out of their hut and shout for him to stop flirting and return to the house for dinner.

At this point, Elijah was old enough to be trusted to take care for his siblings for a night or two if their parents had business outside the village. Elijah would always willingly take on this responsibility but that did not necessarily mean that he enjoyed it.

"Kol, would you like to play catch the baby?" Klaus inquired, holding Henrich up like an offering.

Finn glanced up from the scroll of their mother's he was reading and raised an eyebrow, as though questioning why he had to be surrounded by this level of idiocy on a daily basis.

"I'm not quite certain whether you two are joking about this or not but, to be clear, if you dare you will not have to worry about mother or father killing you because I will already have done it before they arrive home." Elijah promised, without looking up from where he was placing more logs on the fire.

Klaus smirked at Kol, who grinned back and tried to smother a laugh.

"We wouldn't do that to you, would we Henrich?" Nik asked the baby with a smile and began bouncing him, making the little boy giggle and gurgle happily. "You've still got some chance of growing up to be fun, unlike poor Elijah and Finn. Kol and I are giving up hope on them." He shared with the boy in a whisper loud enough for the whole room to hear.

"Give him to me." Rebekah demanded, holding her arms up expectantly. With a chuckle, Klaus handed their brother over to her and she sat down at the table with him, "don't worry, Henrich, I'd never let them do anything to you- you're my favourite."

"That's a lie and we all know it, Bekah. I always have been and always will be your favourite brother." Klaus informed her smugly, making her roll her eyes in response.

She smiled at Elijah and nodded at Klaus who now had his back turned. The blonde teenager was caught unawares when Elijah leapt at him from behind, tackled him to the ground and began to wrestle with him.

"Elijah, what are you doing?" He asked as Elijah tried to trap him in a headlock.

"Consider it revenge, brother, for suggesting that I don't know how to have fun." He smirked.

Rebekah and Kol giggled and placed bets on who they thought would win, while Henrich laughed to himself and sucked his thumb. After much urging from his younger siblings Finn even deigned to join in and managed to beat both Klaus and Elijah at least once.

A few hours later, they were all tired and sitting down yawning and stretching, when Klaus looked down and smiled as he saw that Henrich had fallen asleep nestled in Rebekah's arms and that she had fallen asleep leaning against his side.

"I'm clearly the most well-loved person in this room." He announced indicating his sleeping siblings with a grin.

"That must make a pleasant change from usual." Finn smirked from his place across the room, laughing as his brother glared at him.

**The end.**

**There was no point to this, it started out with Klaus trying to get Kol to say his name and turned into Original family fluff. In the 3x08 flashback on vampire diaries, I got the impression that Klaus was a good big brother as he cut Elijah's belt just to make Rebekah and Henrich laugh and he tried to protect Rebekah from Mikael after they were first turned, so I wanted to show him being a good brother to his little siblings.**

**I noticed that only Klaus's younger siblings call him "Nik" while the rest of the family either call him "Niklaus" or just "Klaus," and I wanted to write something fluffy.**

**I realised I just made Finn sound a bit mean towards the end- he's not. I don't actually know if people would read scrolls back then or if they actually had books but, oh well.**

**Please review.**


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